Eyes of a Legend
by WhoDatGuy
Summary: This story follows David, chronicling his adventures in the capital wasteland and abroad as he battle enemies and feelings old and new. Sorry,I suck at summaries. Please read, your reviews are the only things that will determine if this story goes places. Possible pairings between existing characters and OC's in the times to come. No flames please. My first fanfic.
1. Genesis

As he stepped into the control room of project purity, David's life began to flash before his eyes. Dad, his tenth birthday, the G.O.A.T., Amata… The escape, those first few days, Megaton, the slavers, the second escape, his first super mutant encounter, Galaxy News Radio. _Always leads, no one willing to give him a helping hand without something in return._ Vault 112… Tranquility. Lane. The horrors of that virtual reality still haunting him. Heading back to Rivet city, restarting project purity, Dad. _Favors. Favors. Favors. "Do this and I'll tell ya all about dear old dad." _Depression, being a mailman with a death note, a deliverer of horrible news, the Brotherhood, the G.E.C.K. _The trap. _Raven Rock, _President. Fucking. Eden. _With that memory came the memories of all the horrible people, places, and things in and outside the wasteland. The Pitt, Point Lookout, _Burke_, Tenpenny, Evergreen Mills, and all the other horrible scourges of existence. He had seen it all. All the best and worst memories possible flowing through him all at once.

Then, out of nowhere, clarity. With that sudden clarity David focused on one thought, a shred of memory barely recognizable when he ad just turned one. He could only remember one thing, his smiling father.

_Twenty three years earlier._

"Wow! Look at you! One year old and already walking like a pro! Your mother would be so proud of you…"

James' voice faded off as he remember the terribly saddening thought in his mind. He quickly shook it off, and his light hearted aura resumed.

"Come on David, come to daddy!"

The infant obeyed as he slowly but surly waddled his way over to his father, giggling merrily the entire time. He finally reached James, eagerly awaiting his son's arrival in the playpen. James then closed the gate behind the child and crouched down gently until he was (somewhat) at the eye level on his son.

"I know you don't like it when daddy leaves but I need to run and check on a few things in the lab first. I'm gonna need you to stay here and hold down the fort while I'm gone, can you do that for me?"

A somber face replaced quickly by a giggle was all the answer James needed to know that his message had gotten across. He slowly got up and made his way out of the room and left his son on his own, knowing that in a few minutes David's curiosity and ingenuity would get the better of him. Personally, James was amazed at how his son managed to retain the information given to him with such precision. Even though David's ability to communicate was marginal at best now, with a vocabulary of about 10-15 words, his ability to learn, coupled with his young enthusiasm and growing ingenuity was more than enough to keep little David busy.

Within about two minutes of James' departure David had managed to unlock the playpen gate, casually stroll out, grab his favorite teddy bear, and begin looking at an old pre-war book titled, "You're SPECIAL." After skimming the book from cover to cover, apparently making himself even happier, despite what little he could understand. David then began to slowly pace the room, examining all the details of his little room within the vault. Vault 101 to be exact, a massive fallout shelter capable of protecting and sustaining up to 1000 residents from a nuclear Armageddon for an unlimited duration, or at least that was the goal of this vault in particular.

Vault 101 was one of 116 public fallout shelters constructed by U.S. Government contracted Vault-Tec inc. These shelters were advertised to house costumers in some of the most secure places on the planet, usually encased within a mountain or similar terrain feature, in addition to the 13-ton cog-shaped front door which could withstand a direct hit from a nuclear warhead, with an advertised two percent failure rate. Those people lucky enough to have the money and forewarning reserved their spots in vaults across the nation in fear of the coming apocalypse. These lucky few would live in luxury, safe underground while the apocalypse occurred above them, while they happily sipped on a fresh, ice-cold Nuka-Cola, blissfully unaware of the devastation occurring no more than 1000 feet away from them.

However, the dark truth was that the vaults were never intended to save anyone. They were a massive social experiment determined to test how the average human would react in certain conditions. Every vault had a flaw built in to test how the resident would respond over the course of the experiment. One example, vault 46 was populated by 15 men, 12 women, and one panther. Another example was vault 69 and 70, where women outnumbered men 999-1 and vise versa.

Another, more gruesome example, was vault 12, located in southern California where the main door to the vault did not shut properly, allowing the inhabitants to be exposed to the radiation from the nuclear war that the vault was supposed to protect against. Instead of the results predicted, (severe radiation sickness and death) the radiation slipped into the vault in such a way that the inhabitants were exposed to non-lethal amounts of radiation in a slow, horrifically painful process in which the skin began to dry and start to fall off in sheets of dead skin and muscle. This process took several months, but at its conclusion, the former vault dwellers were transformed in to a group of zombie-like, sterile humanoids. The process did however give them a very unique trait, it granted them extremely long lifespans, allowing them to live well beyond a typical, non-mutated human, a few of them passing the 200 year mark, making them vessels of knowledge, of what the world once was, and what the world has turned into since that time. A major downside, apart from becoming a horrid mess was their alienation from the rest of humanity, due to their once again, zombie like appearance. Eventually, these sad individuals were dubbed ghouls, a sadly fitting name for these former humans.

As for vault 101, its "goal" was for it to be governed by a dictatorial and overbearing overseer. In addition to basically being governed by a paranoid bully, the vault was intended to be sealed in 2077, and never open _ever_ again.

However, to David as he examined his room, I was simply home. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. A few minutes later, James returned after viewing some test results and checking on a few patients in his office. When he walked into David's room, he was not the least bit surprised to see his boy up and about, always exploring, always wanting to know more. Just the thought of it reminded him of Catherine, those emotional wounds not being more than a year old and yet he felt as if she had been taken away from him just yesterday. He managed to shake it off, albeit a little reluctantly and focused on his son before him.

"Quite the explorer you are, huh?" He smiled in that I-figured-you-were-up-to-no-good way and sighed in a mixture of sadness and pride.

He then said, "Well if I can have your attention for a few minutes I want to show you something important to me and your mother."

James then brought his son to the other side of the room and brought his son's eyes to bear on a small framed bible quote sitting on the desk.

"It's a passage from the Bible, Revelations 21:6 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the waters of life, freely. It was your mother's favorite quote, I had it framed after she passed…" He ended the last phrase with a rather depressing note, a year away and the pain was still a fresh knife wound. He noticed his son's expression and straightened, saying,

"Well, that's enough of that for now, how about we see if your friend Amata wants to play?" With that, David's face grew exponentially and he grabbed his father's hand, leading him into the hallway.


	2. Surprise

_Nine years later._

David walked down the hall making his way to the diner for a quick lunch. He knew that today was his birthday, and although he knew that it probably wouldn't get much recognition, he knew that he would at least get his own Pip-Boy 3000 any day now, and the excitement and anticipation was tearing him apart. Little did he know that he would be having cake for lunch instead…

"Happy Birthday!"

"Happy Birthday!"

"Happy Birthday!"

"Happy Birthday!"

As if the lights in the diner not being enough of a hint, the cheers and clapping was more that enough to put a smile on his face, and hands over his eyes.

"Stanley! You turned the lights on too quick, you blinded the kid!" Said Oficer Gomez. Gomez was the father of Freddie Gomez, who unfortunately did not get along with David as well as he had hoped. The problem that he was having was that besides David, the only other boys in the vault Freddie's age were Butch DeLoria, Wally Mack, and Paul Hannon. The three boys had recently founded a loosely organized gang called the "Tunnel Snakes". Gomez knew that they were not a problem now, but if this nonsense continued for five or six years, these kids could become a serious problem for the security officers, let alone his own son.

Other than David and the Tunnel Snakes, there were only girls in the vault for Freddie to play with. Another problem was that Freddie was still under the illusion of the, "horrific coodies" which apparently plagued all the girls and made Freddie and the Tunnel Snakes cringe at the sight.

This seemed to not to be too much of a problem for David however, as he had seen that the Tunnel Snakes were not to be messed with, and had thus turned to the girls for friendship. He had made two close friendships with Amata and Jessica, and was on neutral ground with Christine and Susie.

"Happy birthday kiddo! God, I'm so proud of you." James said happily. He knew that this was an important time in David's life and he hoped to make the best of it. He thn looked to his so and said,

"Look, don't let me keep you waiting, go mingle with the rest of the people."

David then looked to his dad beaming and walked past him but was soon stopped by Amata followed closely by Jessica. Amata smiled and said,

"Bet you didn't expect us to be behind this party did you?"

David looked at her and said sarcastically, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought that Susie and Freddie were behind all this and that you guys had nothing at all to do with it. Let me go and give thanks where it's due."

"Ha, ha, very funny David." Jessica responded dryly. Jessica was a bit of an oddball, she had been born a little early for the pregnancy cycle, almost a year older that any kid in the vault, save David, maybe. The size of her body made her seem at least two years younger than she was, but her voice more than made up for it. Just the sound seemed to demand attention, which happened to help her out on more than one run in with Radroaches and the Tunnel Snakes.

Amata then cut in saying, "I bet you can't guess what we got for you for you're birthday!"

David thought "hard" for about two seconds before a scoundrel grin appeared on his face and he said, "Um, a date with Susie Mack?"

Amata's expression darkened and she spat back, "You can be a real jerk sometimes, you know that?"

"Whoa, whoa, it was just a joke, geez you're easy to fool huh?" David said defensively. This made a quiet giggle erupt from Jessica and immediately made Amata turn on her saying angrily,

"What? So all of a sudden you're on his side?!"

"No, no. Amata, don't take this seriously, it was just a joke anyway." Jessica said in response. This seemed to defuse Amata who soon returned to her previous state (albeit reluctantly) and handed David a small, thin, paperback book. David's eyes immediately lit up and he snatched it out of her hands before she could even utter the phrase, "who's you're favorite barbarian?"

"No way! How did you get you're hands on this?!" said David with excitement covering his face.

"Weeeeell, believe it or not, I found it in a box of my father's old things. I guess everyone was ten once" Amata mused.

"Hey, I put just as much effort into finding that as you did, don't try taking all the credit for yourself!" Jessica pouted.

"Aw don't worry about it Jess, I'm sure-" David quickly stopped talking as the Overseer approached him with a small device in his hands.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything am I? No? Good. I thought now would be as good a time as any to present you with your own Pip-Boy 3000. Get used to it." grumbled the Overseer as he marched away, his duty done.

"Wow, your dad sure likes to cut in to conversations, doesn't he?" Jessica said angrily. Along with being an oddball, Jessica had never found favor with the Overseer as had David. Both of them always seemed to be the ones whom trouble was blamed on by the Overseer even when it was blatantly the cause of Butch and his petty gang. She sometimes wondered if the Overseer had done this purposefully to drive a wedge between Amata and her. Jessica could easily see why though. It was a well known fact that Alphonse was grooming Amata to be the future Overseer, partially because the man truly didn't trust anyone in the entire vault other than his daughter. Sad, yes, but she did understand.

"Well don't let us keep you hanging, go mingle, we'll talk more in a bit" Amata said abruptly, obviously wanting to have a word or two with Jessica.

David then left the two girls to bicker and made his way to where Old Lady Palmer was. It would have been a nice scenario had the Overseer not been giving him a death stare from across the table. David knew the Overseer hated his presense, too optimistic for his taste. At the same time though, David was an extremely soft spoken individual, living most of the time in his head, mulling over different ideas that had been put on the proverbial back burner, and never really saw the Overseer as someone worthy of his attention. However, he managed to maintain his composure and calmly walked up to Old Lady Palmer saying,

"Hi Mrs. Palmer! Glad you could make it." The statement was hollow at best. Over the past 200 years the vault's population had been shrinking faster than it could reproduce. Nowadays, the population was so small that most people had nothing better to do anyway. However, Mrs. Palmer was an exception, she enjoyed the child's company much more that many of the other people in the vault, partially due to the fact that he seemed to speak better with adults than with his own age group.

"Oh, I wouldn't miss it for the world, even if there was a world outside the vault to go to. But, on a more serious note, I'm sure that you want to know what I got for you." She said with a smile on her face.

"You didn't have to get me a present, Mrs. Palmer, I'm fine right now," David said with a grin. Mrs Palmer always seemed to know just what he wanted.

"Fiddlesticks! What ten-year-old doesn't like presents? Well, regardless I made a sweetroll just for you! No sharing required!" she said with a worn smile.

With that, David took the sweetroll, thanked Mrs. Palmer, and made his way over to the barstools where Stanley and his father were. Befor he could get there, Butch managed to plant himself right in front of his path. With that, David shot,

"Move it Butch, I wanna talk to my dad."

" No way loser! I want your sweetroll, didn't you see what happened to your stupid cake?" Butch spat at him. David hadn't even noticed what had become of his after Andy the robot had torn it to pieces with his buzz saw attachment. When he turned to look at the cake, Butch the momentary distraction and snatched the sweetroll out of David's hand and pushed him to the ground. Now, David had never been in a fight before but he knew the decision of fight or flight when dealing with radroaches before and he knew that the best action was to run from them and alert a security guard of its location. Looking at Butch, David knew that he was more formidable than a radroach, but he also knew that if he let this stand things would only get worse. Quickly, David rose up to a laughing Butch and grabbed the sweet roll out of his hand and pushed him away before quickly putting some distance between himself and Butch and setting his prized sweet roll on the counter before looking back at a _very_ pissed little monster. Butch charged at david for all it was worth before running headlong into the armor plate of Officer Gomez, sending a little Butch to the ground in tears.

"What do you think you're doing?" said an angry Gomez.

"He tried to steal my sweet roll and he pushed me down. So I got up, stole _my_ sweet roll back and pushed him away." Said a rather calm David.

"Is that true Butch?" Said Gomez.

"Yes"

"Your mother is going to hear about this"

"Aw, No!"

"Aw, Yeah!" said a triumphant David.

"David, please stay out of this and go back to your party will you?"

"Sure, no problem"

With that, David wandered of towards Stanley sitting at the bar talking with his father, he was the vault engineer/mechanic.

"Hi Stanley! Did you see my new Pip-Boy?"

"Why yes I did! A little heavy huh?"

"Yeah, kinda"

"Well don't worry to much about it, give it a few days and it'll feel as if it wasn't even there in the first place."

"Ok. By the way, this seems kinda familiar, did you fix this one up?"

" I certainly did! I always liked the A Series for its reliability"

David thought the same way, he always chose function over fashion. It was his philosophy, to have something that could be used rather than some eye candy.

"Oh! Almost forgot! Her you go," Stanley then put a red baseball cap on David's head.

"Happy birthday. It isn't much but I hope you like it."

"Thanks Stanley!"

David then left the bar stools and headed back over to where Amata and Jessica were guarding his recently reacquired gooey treat.

"Wow David, seriously? You already forgot your sweet roll?"

"Oh, well how about in exchange for you guys guarding my sweet roll we split it?" David offered.

"We were waiting for you to say that" stated Jessica who immediately tore the sweet roll into three sections, handing the biggest one to David. All three began to munch on their third of the sweet roll when James came around, whispered something into David's ear and quietly left the room. David awkwardly finished his share of the sweet roll before saying,

"Do you guys think I might be able to slip away for a few minutes? My dad needs me for a bit."

"No problem, just don't stay away too long r there might not be a party to return to ." Jessica said.

"Ok I'll be right back."

David quickly made his way out of the diner and down to the reactor level where he knew his father was waiting. He had no idea what James had in store for him but he knew he would find out soon enough. When he opened the reactor level door he was me with a smiling Jonas Palmer, a research assistant and James' protégé. Jonas was like a brother to david and like any brother, he knew how to push the little one's buttons.

"What do you think you're doing down here? Last time I checked, kids weren't allowed on this level."

"Oh come on Jonas, everyone knows that, but I think I'm a bit of an exception, don't you think? Besides, I've got my own Pip-Boy! That proves that I'm old enough to be down here."

"True, true, I'm sure you're here because of your father, and I believe he has something for you." Jonas said wisely. James approached the pair saying,

"Well I see you two are getting along just fine. Anyway, David I know you were expecting to help us somehow, but I think that can wait a bit." As James said that, he reached behind the door for a long object hidden in the shadows. As he grabbed it, a thought crossed his mind: should I really be doin this? I could be setting into motion a life of violence for him…Nonsense it's a BB gun, a pea shooter, nothing close to what lies outside… He shook off the feeling and presented the recently restored object before his boy and said,

"Here you go kiddo, your own BB gun!"

David's eyes grew wide at the sight and he slowly reached out and cradled his new weapon of minor destruction and looked at his dad with a burning excitement.

"Well I know what you're thinking. Do you want to shoot it?"

"We can't shoot in here can we?"

"We certainly can't, but me and Jonas have found a place where you can come and shoot any time you like, ok?"

As soon as James finishes saying that, Jonas opened another door leading into a storage room and let David's eyes feast on the sight before him: Three freshly painted spinning targets. David immediately took aim and fired. A _ping_ was heard, but the BB hit the wall behind the target to his dismay. However, the _ping_ noise attracted a radroach which made its way into the shooting range and hissed at the sight of david. This tim was different though, for David had a brand new BB gun in his hands. No running away this time. Adrenaline took over and he aimed down the sight of his gun and fired three shots into the creature's mutated head. All three BB's hit their mark and the small creature hissed before its legs gave out and it rolled over on its back. Dead. The shock on James' face was soon replaced with a proud expression as he walked over to his son congratulating him saying,

"Now that's how to take down a radroach! Jonas, come and take a picture of me and the big game hunter."

James reached down, putting his arm around his son and Jonas quickly grabbed a camera off the shelf and readied it.

"Ok, say cheese!"

"Cheese!"

_Flash_


End file.
